Allegations of Racism Fly As Harvard Law Braces for Today's Student Government Elections
Hey Harvard Law School, high school called, it wants its drama back....
Galloway sent a ridiculous email to the HLS student body. Here’s an excerpt:
Dear students,
I write to you today extremely, extremely saddened by how this campaign has developed. Otherwise meaningful discourse has devolved into accusations of discrimination and racist behavior. The Self-Affinity campaign has suggested to hundreds of you that my ticket is “anti-diversity”, that I am ‘discriminatory’, and that I voted (or failed to vote) on several measures that simply didn’t exist. The allegations are serious, and the HLS administration has put on the table sanctions of Administrative Board review of the Self-Affinity ticket, as well as potential court proceedings. This is relevant because I absolutely do not want to see this campaign divide this school and I feel the only way to respond is with factual clarifications which are long due.
I don’t want to divide the school, so I’m trying to get a disciplinary body to sanction my opponent? I’d say that’s the worst possible way to not divide the school, if there was any chance a student council election could divide a school.
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Anyway, then Galloway launches into her complete life story:
As a woman of color, who happens to be President of SALSA and BLSA Social Justice Committee Chair, my positions are about empowering student grounds and encouraging diversity and the exchange of ideas. Issues of race and social justice, as any of my friends here will tell you, are more important to me than any Student Government election. This issue is substance of my every day life; I grew up in West Virginia…
Sorry, I couldn’t take it anymore, it’s so boring.
She goes on like this for a while. But while she’s presenting her 11-point rebuttal to Self-Affinity, she gets to her different interpretation of the potentially prejudicial amendment:
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4) Self-Affinity produced a candidate statement and campaign literature that suggests Student Government “bars future student organizations based on state, national, or regional identity.”
False. False. False. This is a drastic misrepresentation and total manipulation of the actual language of the amendment, which actually only uses state, national, or regional identity groups as an example for the heart of the amendment which is the first sentence: Student Government will consider fundamental the possibility for an organization to fit within the mission of another existing organization or office. The reason for this is simple: 1) resources are limited and 2) countless groups have realized that they did not even know that other groups that share their interest exist, given that we have probably 100+ organizations. This expectation – the only difference between me and Self-Affinity’s position on student groups – is that a student group first try to see if there is room within an existing organization that could perhaps incorporate that interest. This is especially important because it helps the new group with funding and sometimes groups find that they have better access to resources with an infrastructure that already exists. When one doesn’t, like the Brazilian Student Organizations (which met with La Alianza to see if there was room for collaboration and decided because of language and body of law differences, among other cited reasons, that it would be best to be separate), that group surely should exist.
Fine, great. Galloway goes on to demand that the student government immediately release the minutes of their meetings so she can support her points. I don’t know what world she’s living in where she thinks HLS students want to read minutes of a freaking student organization meeting, but there you go.
But make no mistake, Galloway will not be out-douched by Self-Affinity:
Please forward this to your friends, section mates, group lists, and anyone you can… Today, no stickers, no cookies, no posters, no chalk, no flyers. Just the truth.
I’ll reprint her full letter below, but I urge you to just skip over to page three, so we can look at the “joke” candidate — yeah, we haven’t even gotten to the guy who is doing it on a lark — and vote. But, if you are a sucker for bad writing and worse campaigning, scroll down….
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EMAIL — REBUTTAL EMAIL FROM CANDIDATE JOANNE GALLOWAY
Dear students,
I write to you today extremely, extremely saddened by how this campaign has developed. Otherwise meaningful discourse has devolved into accusations of discrimination and racist behavior. The Self-Affinity campaign have suggested to hundreds of you that my ticket is “anti-diversity”, that I am ‘discriminatory’, and that I voted (or failed to vote) on several measures that simply didn’t exist. The allegations are serious, and the HLS administration has put on the table sanctions of Administrative Board review of the Self-Affinity, as well as potential court proceedings. This is relevant because I absolutely do not want to see this campaign divide this school and I feel the only way to respond is with factual clarifications which are long due.
As a woman of color, who happens to be President of SALSA and BLSA Social Justice Committee Chair, my positions are about empowering student grounds and encouraging diversity and the exchange of ideas. Issues of race and social justice, as any of my friends here will tell you, are more important to me than any Student Government election. This issue is substance of my every day life; I grew up in West Virginia as part of the only family of color in town, I committed to close the racial achievement gap for two years doing Teach for America in Harlem, and studied nothing but social justice when I pursued my Masters in Human Rights and also my Masters in Education. This is absurd that these should even be billed as merits for the HLS Student Government Presidency and this is the first time in 26 years I have ever had to defend my commitment to diversity. While my time in Teach for America has no doubt transformed my strong views on leadership and personal principles, for example, I should not be justifying my actions in opposition to racism, at HLS and otherwise – whether that I called for Student Government to act in response to the racist blog, or that I personally signed and followed up with a petition against Cure Lounge for their discrimination against BLSA and other minority student groups, etc. etc.; these measures, to me, are so expected that I deserve no credit for them.
Self-Affinity (and running mate) have promoted and disseminated numerous statements about completely made-up Student Government votes and policies that do not exist, which is why I have asked Student Government to vote on an immediate emergency disclosure of our minutes and hope they will support that effective immediately – like they have all my other proposals to disclose Student Government information. To briefly clarify the record, all 4 transparency measures over the course this year (by-laws, budget, attendance records, and minutes) have been proposed by me, and supported by me. Self-Affinity has proposed 0. I have also been behind the procedures standardizing how our school selects and vets Student Government’s charities for the Thanksgiving Dinner, codifying criteria for the Student Funding Board, and the list goes on. I am not the President, but I have done all I can as Vice President to promote transparency under [Redacted]’s administration.
I will not run, and do not want to win, a Presidency where the student body is voting on misrepresentations. So hopefully now we can focus on the facts:
1) Self-Affinity claim in their candidate statement that Student Government is “anti-diversity” and has made these claims personal in addition to “discriminatory” and “racist” being used to describe my position.
False. And absurd. See above. The policy (see below) is actually pro-diversity because it promotes unity and collaboration, and discourages stratification.
2) Self-Affinity distributed literature claiming that I “voted AGAINST full transparency.”
False. Student Government cannot, and did not, see a vague “full transparency” motion. I would know because I proposed every single disclosure measure Student Government had this year (by-laws, budget, attendance, meeting minutes). Furthermore, Student Government does not vote on issues like ‘patriotism’ or ‘freedom’. There has to be substance. Such a vote never occurred.
3) Self-Affinity said that at our Student Government meeting on 2/29, the Student Government voted on transparency.
False. Student Government does not vote on issues like ‘patriotism’ or ‘freedom’. There has to be substance. Such a vote never occurred.
4) Self-Affinity produced a candidate statement and campaign literature that suggests Student Government “bars future student organizations based on state, national, or regional identity.”
False. False. False. This is a drastic misrepresentation and total manipulation of the actual language of the amendment, which actually only uses state, national, or regional identity groups as an example for the heart of the amendment which is the first sentence: Student Government will consider fundamental the possibility for an organization to fit within the mission of another existing organization or office. The reason for this is simple: 1) resources are limited and 2) countless groups have realized that they did not even know that other groups that share their interest exist, given that we have probably 100+ organizations. This expectation – the only difference between me and Self-Affinity’s position on student groups – is that a student group first try to see if there is room within an existing organization that could perhaps incorporate that interest. This is especially important because it helps the new group with funding and sometimes groups find that they have better access to resources with an infrastructure that already exists. When one doesn’t, like the Brazilian Student Organizations (which met with La Alianza to see if there was room for collaboration and decided because of language and body of law differences, among other cited reasons, that it would be best to be separate), that group surely should exist. When one has not even sought the existing group Board’s approval to contain their interest, like Taiwanese Student Organization’s failure to formally present their interest as a group to APALSA and HALS, Student Government encourages the dialogue to happen first – the application for status should then follow.
5) Self-Affinity campaign suggests that Student Government violates students’ constitutional right to convene.
False. Absurd. Students can convene as they see fit. Student Government merely assists with university recognition of status as a campus organization and funding. And see above.
6) Self-Affinity claim that Student Government voted against the Taiwanese Student Organization.
False. The minutes very clearly show that Student Government motioned to table until they confirmed an inability to work with APALSA or HALS, in which case Student Government would consider their status application. It’s that simple.
7) Self-Affinity campaign claimed to several students that the Taiwanese Student Organization was rejected because Student Government deems Taiwan to be an “insignificant country.”
False. The minutes show that nothing even remotely close to this statement was made, and that in fact, several Student Government members, including 2L Representative [Redacted], argued passionately the relevancy of Taiwan in legal discourse but furthered that Student Government’s should not be in a position to weigh countries’ merits in determining status. This is a position with which I firmly agree, and one that Student Government has employed in all of its deliberations on status.
8) Self-Affinity claims that he supports the creation of all new student organizations.
Self-Affinity did not vote in support of the Taiwanese Student Organization, the group his VP candidate proposed. The motion to table passed unanimously.
9) Self-Affinty distributed literature claiming that I “voted FOR discriminatory policies.”
False. Inflammatory. See above.
10) Self-Affinity statement says that “if applied retroactively” the group formation policy would eliminate groups like SALSA, BLSA, HALS, APALSA, etc.
False. Administration finds this to be a threat that was “dishonest”, considering that the issue of retroactivity was brought up in the meeting (as minutes indicate) and quickly clarified that retroactive dissolution of groups was absolutely never an option.
11) There are more, but I will leave it at that. If you have confusion about statements made about our positions, or even Student Government more generally, please reach out to me at [Redacted]
But I also want to clarify in the interest of full disclosure and honesty, importantly, the two complaints raised to our platform:
1) HL Central’s founder expressed that our statements about their organization were not correct. These statements originated from two separate meetings with the administration about the role of HL Central on campus; they statements were not created by me and I asked if the statements could be quoted (and was told this information was already public). Regardless, I promptly removed any reference to HL Central in all of our platform material and issued a correction on our facebook page. HL Central also issued a clause at the bottom of their e-mails. I think that there is much to be clarified, on all fronts, with regards to HL Central’s for-profit status and the compensation structure (that they are not salaried but are on stipend or commission is a easy thing to clarify, if that’s the case). This should best happen in meetings with administration and Student Government with HL Central staff.
2) Self-Affinity expressed that our flyers stating the 26% to 90% attendance numbers implied he was “irresponsible” and we should not have disclosed the attendance.
This I do not agree with and will not act on; candidates for election put themselves in a public position and fall under scrutiny for things like attendance and voting records. He and I both had equal access to the attendance records, as does the entire Student Government body, and soon I believe all of you should too (and will, if the emergency motions pass).
Please forward this to your friends, section mates, group lists, and anyone you can. I need to clear my name and this is really important. This is all I’ve been able to respond to for the past two days since the campaign started. I had no time to actually talk about what I’ve done, or prepare our campaign material, but I hope that positive discourse can start now. Today, no stickers, no cookies, no posters, no chalk, no flyers. Just the truth.
